November 11, 2009

One of the projects at this Friday's Chicago Craft Social will be freezer paper stenciling. I'm helping lead this table, so I needed to give it a test drive and make up some samples. You know how a project usually has four tedious steps you tolerate and one step that's super fun? I think this is one of the few where all of the steps are fun. Or maybe that's just me. I'm now in the grips of stencil mania. I'm stenciling everything.

To stencil your own stuff:Buy a roll of freezer paper (approx. $3.99) or beg a piece from the guy in the meat department at your grocery store. Draw your design on it and cut it out with an X-acto knife. Then iron the paper, shiny side down, onto the fabric you're going to stencil. Iron another sheet to the back of the fabric to keep the paint from soaking through. You can use the iron setting that corresponds to the fabric you're stenciling.

With a foam brush, stenciling brush, kitchen sponge, or other paint brush, apply fabric paint to the cut-away areas. I used Jacquard brand textile paint from the local art store.

Let the paint dry (use a hairdryer if you're the impatient type, like me.) Peel the freezer paper off. Set the paint by following the directions on the jar — usually ironing will set it. Ta da.

Oh my God! that is sooooo cool! we so don't have that over here... unless i'm missing it in the supermarket. I'm so going to check tomorrow. Totally unfair if it's only available in America! May have to check with my AAF contacts to see if they have any in the base shops! thanks very much for the link Jess.

I have been dying to try this! I want to pair this technique with a Silhouette SD (saving up for one) so it can do all the cutting. I'm picturing beautiful, maybe even intricate, designs on t-shirts, pillow cases, totes, throw pillows. I wonder what would happen if you used craft paint instead? I know when I get that stuff on my clothes it won't wash out!Thanks for the simple and easy tutorial!

Thank you! You have just saved me from Holiday gift-making meltdown! Last year I hand painted ornaments and was working down to the wire.This year I wanted to continue with handmade, but less time-consuming. LOVE this!

If you're considering using regular acrylic crafting paint, I know several brands also make a fabric medium that you just mix into your regular paint to make it fabric paint. I'm pretty sure I've seen it in the craft section of Wal*Mart, so it's probably readily available at craft and hobby stores.

Kosmika, your stuff probably won't work. The shiny side of my freezer paper is plastic, and when you iron it onto the fabric, it bonds with the surface, adhering the template. Your paper is probably uncoated and won't do that. But you could always test it. Just iron a little piece onto some fabric. If it falls off, you know it won't work for stenciling.

Thank you so much for that, I am equally anal and have been wanting to do some for ages but really needed my hand held, thanks for providing the hand holding, I am going to get stuck in soon. Yours look beautiful, I especially love the cowboy one.

For those of you who don't have freezer paper, I have done this before with clear contact paper. Cut it out slowly on the contact paper side and then just peel and stick. It worked perfectly and the stencil would be good for reusing if you have some way of re-sticking it. I think there is some type of spray on sticky stuff that people use for wall stencils.

Thanks, Jessica for this tute. Here's my 1st attempt and I'm sure to try it again (tomorrow too soon?) Very simple, but I live in small town - will have to order better fabric paint - but I think you'll like the silhouette of my dog (Oliver) and the color I chose. See here:

Kelly - I use the Jacquard paints and have several year plus old shirts that my kid wears (i.e. they get lots of washings) and they look fabulous. The Jacquard paints seem to "dye" the fabric more than simply paint it - the iron to heat set helps too. I do have some run of the mill fabric paint that seems more like actual acrylic paint and while they've held up it isn't the same. I've seen the Jacquard paints at fabric stores, Joannes and online at Dharma Trading if you want to find them. They make a nice range of colors too.

I just finished this project. It was really fun so thanks for sharing. If like me, you can't find freezer paper easily ( I got some in the USA over xmas), it looks very like what the butcher uses to wrap up your meat and then seal along the edges using the heat press. You could always ask your butcher for some and see if it works. I have also tried this using clear contact paper but its a little thicker and harder to cut. Also don't leave black drawn lines on the stencil as I found the black ink rubbed off a bit when applying the paint giving me some dark patches.

I am curious about the inner shapes of your design. When you cut with an exacto, did you leave all pieces carefully in place, iron the whole sheet on the bag and peel off what you wanted to paint? Or, did you iron on the little pieces one by one.

Great tutorial, just what I am looking for. I have a question though. I want to stencil names on a canvas tote bag. I thought what I had in my stash was fabric paint, but it is actually acrylic craft paint. Will that matter? can I use it on a canvas bag?

I think yes. People paint on canvases with acrylic paint all the time, right? The only question would be how it washes... craft paint might not be designed to go through the washing machine. I don't know. So just don't wash it and you're set. :)

I love this tutorial! I desperately want to give it a try but I live in Australia and the only place I can see freezer paper for sale is on ebay (at $20 a roll plus $6.50 in postage!) Does anyone know where I can get it at a more reasonale price? Thanks for sharing your ideas - they are fantastic! PS Yay for Orange!

I've painted tons of shirts with cheap acrylic paint (Apple Barrel works great.) I've had most of my shirts about 3 or 4 years and washed them around once a week and this paint does not fade (: Good luck!

This is an amazing tutorial! I tried this the other day and was a little wary (i've never been a fan of things involving iron-ons) but this tutorial was so easy and created a very professional result. Thanks for sharing!

I was wondering if you know how the freezer paper holds up if you iron it on a day or two ahead of time and paint later? I'd like to set this out as a craft for my daughter's birthday party but since it's not safe for the kids to iron, was hoping to iron on the templates for them a day or two ahead of time and bring in all the items pre-ironed and have them just paint (and peel once the paint is dried)...?

I think it should work just fine to iron on the stencils ahead of time. They don't seem to get less "stuck down" over time, in my experience. To be absolutely sure, you could always just iron a test square of paper onto a tshirt or something and let it sit for a week. For your own peace of mind. :)

Interesting. We don't have that brand of paper in Australia but it sounds like it would be the same stuff as our Glad Go Between which is used to separate foods you want to freeze.Best to try it on an old pillowcase or such first in case it doesn't take the ironing.